Charity fundraising’s rising star
This article is more than 7 years oldLaura Croudace got into charity fundraising to give something back. Now it’s her full-time job and she is thriving in it
To say that Laura Croudace is enthusiastic about fundraising is an understatement. Her eyes light up in an almost childlike fashion when she talks about her work. But don’t let her excitement fool you. She means business and is known in the sector as a rising star.
So what’s her secret? “I have the ethos in fundraising that I treat everyone like my late great-grandmother,” she says. “So if I write to a donor or call a corporate – whatever it is – I think about what my great-grandmother would have thought about what I’m saying. She’s my moral compass.
“I also like to meet donors as much as possible and find out why they are donating. It’s simple really: the more you communicate with donors in a meaningful way, the more they will care and then donate. I don’t focus on financial targets – I always focus on the impact.”
I have an ethos in fundraising that I treat everyone like my late great-grandmotherLaura CroudaceCroudace’s CV was a patchwork of different jobs until she began her fundraising career. It was actually the doctors who treated her disabled son who first inspired her. “My son was born with a rare muscle condition that is quite severe,” she says. “When he was three, he got pneumonia. He was really sick and we thought we were going to lose him. So afterwards I really wanted to thank the doctors from Birmingham children’s hospital by raising money.”
At the time, she was a makeup artist, as well as working at a marketing agency, so she put her skills to good use by getting involved with an annual fundraising event called the Zombie Walk, helping to raise £35,000.
“Because the event raised a lot more after I got involved, someone said to me that I should do it as a full-time job. It hadn’t occurred to me that you could be paid to do it,” she says.
Soon after, she got her first fundraising job at the Vegan Society: “They’d never really had a fundraiser before and I had no idea if I was doing it right, so it was an amazing experience. I was completely thrown in at the deep end.”
She began meeting donors in person, as well as sending personal thank-you notes. “It was a steep learning curve but the money just went through the roof,” she says. “I had cheques coming in with notes saying thank you so much for thanking me.”
Afterwards, Croudace moved on to the vet charity PDSA to experience what working for a large organisation with hundreds of thousands of donors, was like, before moving to her current role of partnerships and engagements manager at The Resource Alliance, a charity for fundraisers, founded by fundraisers.
Fundraising is something Croudace believes anyone can do with the right mindset. “If you’re passionate about fundraising, it doesn’t matter if you’ve got a degree or not. As long as you work hard and you have the right kind of attitude, you can work your way up.”
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